ERP - Oracle Netsuite Cloud

It's been a while since my last post and I'm excited to share what I've been doing the last few months. I've renamed my blog as well to Digital Transformation as I feel the transition to a broader content makes more sense.

My topic for this post is Oracle Netsuite, a cloud ERP for medium sized companies which they claim is the first cloud ERP in the market. I can't argue with this being in the market for almost 25 years as around 2010, we migrated to this system before the Oracle acquisition, and it was already in the cloud.

My current company implemented Netsuite last year and now my team is supporting the system. I can see much improved performance and more functionalities both in Order-to-cash and Procure-to-pay. 

I'm learning more about this system so more content in the weeks & months to come. You can learn more about Netsuite here: Business Software, Business Management Software | NetSuite

Migrate from Dynamics to SAP S/4HANA

It is almost night and day when you get involve with this migration. I'm on my 3rd system migration from Dynamics AX/GP to SAP S4HANA and there's always something unique in each implementation.

One uniqueness is the S4 platform - On-premise vs Cloud, now there's Hybrid. Data migration is another unique criteria to consider. 

The process is almost the same as I remember, a WRICEF or RICEFW was the basis of all the development work and all other requirements like functional specs, change management, master data, etc. were documented.

Every detail is documented and this is where the implementation approach differs from Dynamics and SAP. This is why I said from the start it's like night and day. In a typical Dynamics implementation unless the partner don't have the resources, you normally will deal with a PM, a functional consultant, developer and maybe a report writer but the developer can fill this in some instances. 

The biggest difference is the functional consultant which in a Dynamics project is normally your resource for financials, distribution (supply chain), interfaces and reporting. In SAP, you have functional consultants in almost every module, well that's what I've experienced so far. You have one or two in FI/CO, one each for OTC, PTP and if you do inventory management (MTS/MTO) you need at least one. On the technical side you have one for conversions, one for SAP PI/PO, one or 2 for reporting, more than one for development (ABAP) based on WRICEF and one for training. There's more required for HANA hardware and database.

To summarize, the investment for the migration includes the following:

- SAP S/4HANA licenses. Do multiple negotiations before you commit to SAP.

- HANA hardware (Cloud, Hybrid, on-premise). Azure and AWS are pretty stable now.

- Implementation partner which can be one or multiple and I've done 3 partners at once (Not recommended)

- Internal resources. You'd rather over invest here as you don't want to scramble looking for a resource in the middle of the implementation 

- Get an overall Program Lead not just a project mgr who will oversee functional, technical, infrastructure, financials, and more important "change management". Don't underestimate the last one as you can be on schedule and budget but if your business partners are not happy with the transition then they won't consider it a success internally. 

Microsoft in Retail

In one of my previous post I've mentioned the lack of investment from Microsoft in the EPM space. In this post I'll touch on the Retail space and some transformations that organizations partake.

I was with Microsoft Dynamics between the years of 1990 to 2000 and very privileged with the opportunity. In the last 10 years it has been unfortunate though that most of my engagements (mostly Retail and CPG) have been moving Microsoft to SAP. Why is that? It took me awhile to realize that there were commonality between these companies.

Here are some of my observations:

1  Scalability. They have outgrown Microsoft products, their processes have become more complex and existing investments cannot scale.

2  Relationship. They don’t have direct relationship with Microsoft so they find another partner to help them with their transformation.

3   Support. They need more support from their partners including technology, processes and data. Their current partner don't have all expertise, they can only do one not all.

4  Technology. They want to explore new technologies like Cloud, Big Data, IoT and others. Even though Microsoft can fill these space, the companies don't know who to contact.

If you look at the reasons, Microsoft could’ve easily filled the gaps. SAP does this pretty well, their regional AE's are in constant contact with their clients. They’re constantly asking and they take care of companies that carry weight in the verticals, brands that matter in that space. 

Retail is one vertical where Microsoft can capture some market share. Here are some reasons:

1- Retail companies have complex processes from store operations to back office. Microsoft have all the toolset to help but they're not selling it bundled. They need to go to these retailers and sell their products from store to back office. Show how the POS can integrate with Microsoft Dynamics Inventory then show them Analytics thru Power BI. Do a retail suite of solutions that can solve a retailers process from end-to-end.

2 - Microsoft needs to put more investment in their Retail space. They have the products to scale up and capture a market share but it’s not happening. They’re even losing clients and more importantly “brands” that matter in the space. SAP talks directly to top brand customers to know what processes are changing because of regulations, compliance, tariffs and others. In the Enterprise Applications technology takes a back seat, CIO’s look at vendors who can solve complex processes, use best practices, able to provide solutions to regulatory or country specific requirements and others.

I can go on but my point here is Microsoft does have the products but they need to understand the business needs and how they’re going to selling their products effectively. I’ve seen demos where the CFO and CIO just walk out of the room because they’ve missed the mark so bad. SAP is not untouchable, they just know how to sell their products well and Microsoft needs to learn from them.

Amazon piece of the pie

How big is Amazon compared to the other retailers

Did SAP Fiori capture the future of software development?

SAP Fiori is using modern design principles like role-based, responsive, simple and delightful to create the next generation of SAP software products. The user experience or UX is personalized that you can create an application by targeting a certain user or persona instead of the current designs where we all fit everything in one window to target multiple users. What happens, users tend to ignore fields that are not relevant to them and this equates to frustration or even inefficiencies. So the question then is, will the future design of applications target certain personas not roles to make business users feel that its personalize than targeting a role then use that as your template?

Here are some videos about SAP Fiori:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX5X8ewlD0I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-UMfarMOoo&list=PLeNDocm2iuMMT75fIkxK_OwF97nzk4p5o

In-Memory Appliance: SAP HANA vs Oracle Exalytics

I was trying to research Oracle Exalytics to learn more about the Oracle cloud offering and stumbled upon this interesting video comparing it with SAP HANA. Just interested as previously had implemented HANA with another client so knowing the basic difference might make a difference in the future I need to choose between the 2 giant vendors.

Here's the video, ignore the characters as they look like aliens without neck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2ykQHmudoQ

EPM arena but where is Microsoft

Happy Monkey Year!!!

I haven't been as active as I've been learning and implementing different systems. If you check my previous posts, my last project was moving Dynamics to SAP suite and we finally wrapped that at end of 2014. One reason my client move out of Dynamics is lack of applications in planning and HR.

In 2015, I started another chapter and this time managing programs. One program was finance transformation where there were several tracks including SAP upgrade, Financial Planning, Tax Transformation and others. I'm also managing other parts of retail like OmniChannel, Retail Accounting, Visual Mechandising programs which was very interesting as you see other parts of a retail business.

The SAP landscape was moving to a new platform, can't really say it but it's in the retail space. 

Financial Planning was another exciting program where I'm moving an Infor system to Oracle Planning Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS). 

I want to call out Microsoft Dynamics as I moved to implementing Tier 1 applications,  I realized that Microsoft Dynamics is missing a lot of business applications. One application which organizations have now realized benefits is Enterprise or Corporate Performance Management (EPM/CPM). Leaders include SAP BPC, Oracle Hyperion/PBCS, IBM TM1 (Cognos). In my years attending Convergence and others, I never heard Microsoft going into this arena and you ask why. 

Every organization today do performance planning in one way or the other. Retail, CPG, Telecom, Healthcare, Prof Services and others need to do this to stay competitive and the functionality is already mature. I think to survive the next wave of ERP investments or Postmodern ERP, CIOs will look for vendors who can provide a consolidated package of solutions including the following - ERP, CPM, BI, CRM, HRIS and others.

If you look at the market today, you can count the vendors with one hand. Unfortunately, Microsoft Dynamics is not one of them as they missed investing in CPM and HRIS. SAP even have solutions for HRIS - SAP HR and SuccessFactor.

I hope this will open conversations inside Microsoft where the next investment should be. I'd be interested to be part of that conversation.